eugenesis-text

Galvatron and Siren were pinned in their seats and left to pray that the brown liquid did not find a crack or
fissure in their armour. They could hear Magnus screaming.
Death’s Head fully expected to be shot as soon as he appeared in the dock, but there were no guards.
The chamber was empty. The damaged wall had been sealed and now the liquid was draining away. He
watched the Trident’s wingtips stretch into view as the water level dropped. Soon, his Cybertronian
teammates were climbing into a dry dock.
‘Where is everyone’ asked Siren. ‘You take ‘em all out, DH’
‘Recovered the Matrix and liberated your planet too, yes’
The docking chamber rocked as a thousand geysers of steam erupted from drainage valves. Something
had sprung a leak, or overflowed, because no sooner had it slipped away, the backwash and brine was
leaking up through the floor.
Galvatron straightened his Scraplet necklace. ‘They’re running. Everyone’s running. You saw the
spacecruiser in orbit.’
‘We’re too late’ said Siren, not sounding too disappointed.
‘I refuse to accept that.’ Magnus pulled shotguns from his Pretender backpack and shook liquid from
the barrels. ‘Split into pairs and spread. Death’s Head, give Siren the guided tour. Galvatron, you’re with
me.’
‘If you want to tag along, Magnus, that’s fine. But I doubt we’re looking for the same thing.’
‘There’s no time to argue, Nightbeat! You’ve trusted my instincts before, why not—’ Optimus
paused over the handheld communicator. ‘No, there’s no other way. He’s essential to my plans. Just find
him and bring him to the Canyons.’ Another pause and then, ‘That’s an order, Nightbeat. Prime out.’
He replaced the comm-set and checked one of the Ark’s radar screens. ‘How many Tridents,
Bluestreak’
‘Too many. One must be a full-blown landcruiser.’
‘In direct pursuit’
‘Yeah. Expect the first wave in under five minutes.’
‘Excellent.’ Prime stepped down onto the wider bridge and acknowledged Mirage with a nod. ‘For a
moment I thought they’d ignored the bait. Their fighter craft are fast.’
‘The Ark is faster. We should widen the gap.’
‘You know the plan.’
‘Do I You keep adding little twists and turns. Why did you intervene back there You were
supposed to stay on the Ark, not dive headlong into battle!’
‘You seriously expect me to watch and wait while my men are slaughtered’
‘I expect you to keep sight of the larger picture.’
‘You call this the larger picture In my time Cybertron had a population of billions, not just a ragged
handful of sub-groups and hybrids. All I see now is a race reduced to triple numbers, forever teetering on
the brink.’
‘But it’s nearly over! We’re going to win!’
‘Mirage, my friend, even if we win the next ten thousand battles, there will be ten thousand more.
There is no future – just a powering down, a weathering.’
Mirage stared at him, appalled. ‘I wish I had the words to make you realise what we’ve been through.
We carried on where you left off! After you died on Earth we considered giving up; by your reckoning, we
were just a ragged handful, a few dozen Autobots stranded on a godawful alien planet. You don’t have a
monopoly of hopelessness, Prime. You take my place in, I dunno, 1989, when Starscream possesses the
Underbase.’
‘Starscream possessed the Underbase!’
‘Or swap with me in 1993, when we discover a Cybertronian splinter-race of billions, an Empire
colonising the galaxy in our name.’
Prime’s eyes widened in horror.
‘No, wait, why not trade places in 2006, when the Antiprimus Himself nearly rips the planet to shreds
with his bare hands!’